Knowledge of the shape of a cardiac chamber is useful in a variety of medical applications. For example, it may be desirable to display electrophysiologic data on a realistically shaped cardiac surface to facilitate diagnostic procedures or to facilitate minimally invasive surgical procedures. It has been shown that the ability to present bio-potentials on such a surface provides a powerful diagnostic tool for understanding cardiac arrhythmia. Such systems are known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,611 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,291,549. In prior systems such knowledge is used to calibrate the system so that physical dimensions displayed to a clinician match the actual dimensions of the heart. Accurate knowledge of chamber geometry throughout the cardiac cycle may provide more computationally efficient methods for nearly real time diagnostic and/or therapeutic interventions. In this sense refined knowledge of the shape of the chamber is useful even if it is not displayed to the physician.
In general it is desirable to quickly acquire chamber geometry and there is a need to develop methods that accomplish this result in a clinical setting.